War Stories

Razelle Breuner · Jul 10, 2019

"LADY LUCK" BAR, SAN RIMAT
Druckenwell, local time 1730

Out of all of the planets in Confederate space, Druckenwell was likely Razelle's favorite. Unlike every other world under the "gentle hand" of CIS jurisdiction it was stripped of pretension. There was no coat of shiny paint to cover up the rust and ruin. You either ran the planet or the planet ran you. Never was there a purer corporate oligarchy in the galaxy, and that made it special. While Raz was hardly a boardroom executive or a big-name investor, the way Druckenwell presented the exact face it wanted you to see always left a little smile in her heart.

The bar she'd decided to start her day in was just one more sign of that. San Rimat wasn't as glitzy as Il Avali by any standards, but the "Lady Luck" seemed to be some sort of focal nexus around which all of the grime of the planet could wash up. In an odd way it set her far more at ease than being in a military-secured top-secret bunker under dozens of layers of MoS obfuscation. Here, everything was genuine. It was real. The blubbering of the salaryman who'd just lost his job, the frenzied yammering of the spice-addled whore trying desperately to get clean, the emotionless dedication with which the droid bartender carried out orders despite being covered in people's thrown drinks... that was reality. Sometimes Raz felt good reminding herself of that.

After a month on an undisclosed operation on radio silence, it was time for some shore leave. She'd dropped a line to Scherezade the moment she'd had the chance, and made tracks for the greasiest armpit bar she could find to just... relax. The second the kiddo got here - and taking into account the quick two-day booty call she'd grabbed on the way - she'd have everything she needed. Recharge the batteries, then back in the game.

Her guard was down, and for once, it felt good to not have to be on her game.

Scherezade deWinter · Jul 11, 2019

Druckenwell. Had she been here before? Scherezade had no memory of it, yet when the air smacked her face the moments she stepped off the rank of her ship, her nose wrinkled. It smelled like a slightly more rotten version of Coruscant. Well then. She could deal with that.

There weren't many people that could get her to drag herself to a place like this. Normally, Scherezade would've preferred to spend her time off doing something more useful, like messing with new blueprints for uncommon means of mass production, going for a run, or training new things here or there. But there was a very short list of people that when they called, she dropped everything she could, and she went to the.

Razelle was one such person. What had begun as a battle for the same prey and then the clone threatening to kill her because she looked so much like her mother, had soon bloomed into one of the closer relationships Scherezade had. She didn't tell Razelle that though – Razelle would've told her that it was a sad thing.

And of course, for once, Scherezade decided to adhere to Raz's philosophy (and theoretically, the philosophy of everyone at the Ministry other than her) about blending in, and had shown up in civilian clothes. Not that this kept her from being weaponized under her clothes and in her jewelry, of course, but it was…. Well, she hoped Raz would treat it as progress. She still missed her armor though.

Lady Luck. What a weird name for a bar. Scherezade shrugged and walked in, following her nose to find out exactly where her godmother was, grabbing one mug of beer and one tall glass of full fat cream with ice cubes for herself, and slid elegantly into the booth with her.

Glowing green eyes smiled with glee as he beheld Razelle for the first time in too damn long and with a happy sigh, Scherezade set the drinks down and moved over to Raz to give her a quick hug. She was, after all, the closest thing Scherezade had to a mother.

Razelle Breuner · Jul 13, 2019

Hm? Ah, there she was. Raz raised two fingers in a quick wave, then tapped her stimstick on the ashtray on the table and stood with a stretch. It'd been a while since she'd seen Scherezade, and if she remembered her human familial customs anywhere close to correctly, that meant she'd want a hug. Hugging a girl both younger and taller than her was a weird feeling, but then, hugging literally anyone or anything was something she was still getting used to. Arms firm around her, she didn't bother to squeeze to the point of discomfort. "Hey kiddo. Missed ya." Four words. She'd never been one for opulence.

That done, Raz flopped back in her seat and took a slow drink of her second sazerac of the afternoon. Datapad off, comlink off, Ministry comlink off... no one but the two of them, and every broken, miserable sot in the bar. After a couple of days with Fable, she was recharged. After a couple of days not off the job, she was collected. Nothing was hovering over their heads. She had time. They had time.

"Sorry I've been quiet. Radio silence, you know how it is." She shrugged and rolled her shoulder, picking up her stimstick for a slow drag. "...So, how's things? Run me down on what you've been up to." Raz would have plenty of time to answer questions later. Her curiosity was easier to satisfy than Scherezade's.

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

Scherezade deWinter · Jul 23, 2019

So far, there was exactly one thing that Scherezade really hated about Raz, and it was the smoking thing. As per usual, the Sithling made no attempt to hide the fact that she was using the Force to push the rising smoke away, its purple-gray curls completely unwelcome near her. She wished she could ask Razelle to quit the entire thing all together, but… It was hardly the time, she thought. Maybe the time would come sometime around never. She had patience. As long as she had the Force.

Following suit, Scherezade turned the millions of little devices on her off as well, including the one that gave her a direct link to her sister – the very sister Razelle had yet to meet. Scherezade hadn't even told Madalena about her yet, thinking it was best to wait. She knew that once she did tell her, Madalena would want to meet Razelle as well. But Scherezade couldn't break her heart and tell her it'd be months if not years before that happened. So… She waited. Again.

Force, she hated waiting. And she'd just waited what felt like a forever for Raz to stop being radio silent.

"I do know," she tried to reassure her. Because she did. It didn't mean she had to like it though. "Weapon making, expanding my business, war set up, war participation, blood running down the streets… You know, the usual."

It was a sad admittance though; everything she had done since seeing Raz the last time had been work and Confederacy related, and that included the social events she had attended. "Not like I have a private or social life," she murmured, "but I do have a new duck. Hatched and everything. He's adorable! I named him Duckie!"

Motioning for a droid to come pick their orders up, Scherezade realized she'd never actually moved into the seat across Raz, having remained next to her. And decided to stay there. "Your turn!" the Sithling said with half a bounce, preparing herself to order a little mountain of Batha Wings and maybe some Goat Ribs.

Razelle Breuner · Jul 23, 2019

Raising an eyebrow with a smirk, Raz sat back and crossed her arms. "I look forward to seeing your fresh waterfowl, then." It wasn't even easy to make a euphemism out of that. Ducks weren't funny because they were raunchy, they were funny because they were silly. It'd been way too long since Razelle had had any reason to tell jokes. Or smile, honestly. This was going to take some practice.

Mentally distancing Scherezade from Nessarose was difficult at times. This was one of those times. Just for a moment, between the bouncing and the squeaky tone and the childlike wonder, Raz saw that same ginger ghost again. Fortunately she was getting better at reminding herself of their differences... but that just made the similarities all the more striking. Like a holo based on a story you'd already read; you know it'll be different going in, so everything it has in common takes your attention.

Focus. Tapping the cherry off her stimstick, Raz took one last, slow drag, then squished the butt in the ashtray. A higher-class bar likely would have had an automated trash compactor for this sort of thing; this was not a higher-class bar. "One time," she began, voice low as she did her best to keep her last breath of stimsmoke away from Scherezade. "A long time ago, I was working for someone else. There was a guy they needed dead, but he was a Jedi." After a moment, she rolled her eyes and sighed. "Or a Sith, or something weirder. You know I don't keep track of that sort of thing."

She couldn't fully remember, of course. She'd ended far too many lives to remember all of them. If she'd ever had any in the first place, her humanity had probably died around the time she realized she couldn't remember the face of the first person she'd killed. This one, though, was at least a little fresh, if only because of relevance. "Forcies are tricky. The more you plan, the more you prepare, the harder they are to kill. Sniping doesn't work, either, and you can never get inside of fifty meters."

She cocked her head to one side and finished her drink. As the glass hit the table, Razelle's gaze fell a little heavier on Scherezade. "If you're just looking to fight one, you send another Jedi. He might die, but so might your own guy. If you're looking to kill one, it takes a certain, exacting combination of creativity, improvisation, and asymmetrical malice."

Surely, this was going somewhere. The old soldier reached up and fixed her hair behind one ear. "Depending on how old, weird, or pretty the Forcie in question is, it might take days or weeks to pull off. Back then? For him? I stalked him for three months. After about a week he started getting paranoid - maybe he could sense me, I dunno. Either way, he got careful. Real careful. I kept spooking him, throwing deadly accidents at him or hiring goons to gun him down. Never worked, but after a while he got real careful." Hands down. Seat back. "Too careful."

Razelle paused for a long moment. She hadn't answered the question yet. "No Jedi this time, though. Just a guy who was real careful, and had the resources to be real safe. Wasn't the kind of place we send an army of murderous gingers."

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

Scherezade deWinter · Jul 28, 2019

Huzzah! Raz was willing to meet [member="Duckie deWinter"]! The smile on Scherezade's face was child-like and huge. Raz might as well as might have given her a puppy to hug with that statement – Scherezade's love for various animals knew very few bounds, which was probably why she ended up having a Loth Wolf, a duck, and a dragon, all at once. And why the dragon was still kept in an egg that she put specifically in the fridge to avoid it from hatching because there was no way she was going to torture it by giving it just her tiny ship to grow on.

Quietly though, Scherezade hung to every word that came out of Razelle's mouth. Even after the weeks that had passed, she still did not quite understand why Raz claimed Forcies were weird. To the Sithling, they were no different than anything else, and neither were the none-Forcies, but she just shrugged to that statement. She had no problem killing people – with or without the Force, whether or not they had the Force. But she often felt like she was specifically bred to do that anyway, even if it went against everything she knew of her heritage.

Still, she laughed.

"So how would you kill me if I was your target?" she asked with the same sort of enthusiasm she asked Raz nearly anything else that wasn't directly work related.

Razelle Breuner · Aug 2, 2019

Hooo boy. This was what parents felt like when their kid asked about babies, wasn't it? It was going to be tricky to answer this without being deliberately hurtful. "I wouldn't," Razelle replied shortly, then finished her drink. When she was done and had shuddered down the concentrated alcohol at the bottom of the glass, she finally focused on Scherezade's eyes. Intently. No smile this time.

"But, for the sake of argument, in some crazy alternate galaxy where I had to, it'd be an elaborate process." She shook her head. "Beating you is easy. Driving you off would be as simple as pepper-gas grenades and sonic cannons. Maybe adhesive or cryo mines. Air support's a pretty surefire way, too. Lightsabers and armor beat small arms fire, but they're as useless against heavy ordnance as an infantry energy shield."

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes. Reflexively, she reached for a stimstick, but quickly stopped herself. She'd already had three today, and it was barely noon. She needed to cut back. "If I needed to kill you, the first step is always psychological warfare. Your super-awesome mental bullcrap requires concentration and emotional control. The wrong kind of emotion - or not enough - weakens you. Too much makes your abilities unreliable." Opening her eyes, she sighed and looked at the ceiling. "The second and third steps are more psychological warfare. You're young, pretty, and you've had a rough life. This means you're likely to be really powerful, which means you'll take more time to wear down."

This was uncomfortable, but Razelle had decided to go through with it. It was no worse than frying her with a torture stick. "First, I'd dismantle everything you cared about. Your company? Industrial sabotage, slow and painful. Make it rot away. Shareholders leave, resources dry up, permits lapse and you don't qualify to renew them. That's nothing. Just something to get you on-edge." The blonde shook her head and crossed her arms. "Plant rumors in the Ministry that you're an unreliable or dangerous asset. Put you under tighter control. Less freedom. Worse missions. As your mental state began to degrade, through frustration and boredom, second wave."

She brought up two fingers, pointing to Scherezade's head like a gun. "Your sister." She pulled the trigger, then loaded another round. "Your friends." Another shot. "They don't have to die. If they're in danger, that's good enough." Back to crossed arms, Razelle shrugged and focused on Scherezade's face. "Honestly, if they're alive but critical, that's better than dead. If you're worried about them, you start to slip. That's what I'd need."

Drumming her fingers on her upper arm, Razelle couldn't even keep eye contact. "If you knew it was me, that would be a hit on its own. We're close. That makes me the perfect weapon. And you would. You guys always know. The more you telegraph it, the more a Jedi picks up on it." She shook her head. "So I'd need someone else. Someone either harmless, or someone that you trusted. Brainwashing, suggestion, reprogramming, or a shapeshifter. Any of them would work. They wouldn't need to fool you for long - just long enough to get a shot in. Just long enough for you to be distracted enough to let it through. Ripper at close range, thermal det, something with weight, when you didn't have your saber."

She shook her head. "But that would just be enough to get you to focus on them. Meanwhile, a Nightstinger shot from about a kilometer away. Vongformed assassin bug. Something like that." Her tone was solemn. Sullen. Raz's mind was ill at ease, to say the least. "Hey, kiddo, can we talk about something else?" It was all the same stuff she'd used before. Many, many times before. But using it on Scherezade? Even imagining using it on her? That was really uncomfortable.

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

Scherezade deWinter · Aug 3, 2019

Scherezade gave a small smile as Raz said she would not. She wanted to believe it, with all her heart. In an existence that was nothing short of chaos and mess that Scherezade did mostly not want, Razelle was a small pillar of stability. Sure, she went radio silent from time to time, but she still represented something that Scherezade had nothing of – safety.

And yet, every single person that Scherezade had thus let into her heart had betrayed her. It had pushed her to try to end her own life, and since coming back, while she did have a couple of friends… Something had changed. She'd remained thirsty for the love and attention, starving for it, yet she also kept them all at a certain distance. There was a deep imbued fear that it was only a matter of time before any of them would betray her so harshly yet again. Though she'd admit freely, that with Raz that distance was the smallest among them all.

As Raz began to lay the plan out, Scherezade found herself listening quietly, going for the food as she chewed and contemplated. She hated the fact that Razelle had figured it out. Granted, Scherezade had been chit at keeping anything hidden from her, especially on the day they'd met and Scherezade had cried and begged Razelle not to leave her. And still, it was unsettling.

Removing the meat off another Bantha wing and swallowing with barely a chew, she nodded her head. All the questions that popped into her head though, sounded like other subjects that would potentially be hard for there and then. Things like so why don't have a family? or maybe come meet my sister again because I've obviously not whined to you enough about her seemed to be unfitting.

"Can you…" she found herself asking after another Bantha Wing was swallowed, biting her lip for a moment to consider her words. "I have very few memories of my parents after they went to Endelaan. My grandmother put all those memories inside my head, but they ended before Endelaan was re-discovered, when mom was at around fifteen or sixteen. Then there's a huge blank, and then the sun filled rooms and lullabies on Endelaan. You've told me what my mother was like but…"

She sighed. With all the stims Raz had in her body, it would probably not work anyway, but she wanted to ask for it regardless. "But you can totally say no," she said, "but can you share a memory with me? My mother, my father, or maybe even just you without them and not even on Endelaan but during happier times. Something… Something to have."

Razelle Breuner · Aug 5, 2019

Oh thank gods. Even scratching old wounds was better than seriously and rigorously contemplating the death of maybe one of four people Razelle actually cared about. With a relieved smile, the blonde sat back in her booth and let out a deep breath. "Yeah, alright. Lemme see." What did she even remember about Dio? He was mostly one of Nessa's orbiters, if Raz's patchy clone-memory held any water. Nessa was way easier, though also much more painful. Still, it was probably worse for Scherezade not knowing than it was for Razelle recounting past grievances.

Alright. How about...

"So, Endelaan was a podunk when we got there," she started, crossing her boots up on a chair on the other side of the table. "And honestly, it was still kind of a podunk when I left for the last time. We hadn't made a lot of progress. Some land cleared for refueling any ships that landed, a couple of stone structures. Rudimentary ion turbines supplemented with solar power, but nothing that could support any real infrastructure." The old nag tried not to think about how readily every single one of those savages was to actively resist change. Raz was from a frontier world - she knew the value of being able to hunt with makeshift weapons and work with wildlife. But stalwartly clinging to the "old ways" was just as stupid as refusing to sully your hands with "primitive means."

Right. Continue. "This wasn't really a big deal most of the time. All it really did was add a sort of... archaic, mystical air to the place. Wasn't really a fan." Razelle tapped the counter and held up a finger towards the bar. 'Nother round. "One time, there was some kinda solstice celebration going on. And your mom was all on-edge about it. Planet was haunted, or something like that, which meant that everything we built on it was haunted, too. Her tribe was all wound up in some festival, but she and I were in the main temple, getting ready, when all this weird crap started happening."

Risking a chuckle, Raz leaned forward, arms crossed on the table. "You wanna know how much good an illegally-modified heavy blaster and a sadistic working knowledge of anatomy does against ghosts?" She was largely just there to be on-edge, honestly. That and enjoy the real show. "But your mom... she was all up on that necromancy stuff. Ancestral communion, or whatever. Saw her raise half a brute squad once to tear apart the rest of their buddies. This stuff should've been child's play, from what I understood about it."

By now, the memories were flooding back. Trapped in the temple, half gussied-up for the festival outside, the mighty Queen Nessarose deWinter of Endelaan had gone a little bridezilla. Now she couldn't help but laugh, if a little quietly. "But she went all irate princess on 'em the second she saw someone trespassing in her house." Razelle waved her fingers in mock passion. "Shouting that they had no right, or whatever. Disrespecting her authority, I am your queen..." Her giggle fit started to raise a bit. "It took us an hour and a half to get from her room to the door, and by then, both of us looked like we'd swam through a kiosk crowd in discount season. Hair was a mess, makeup smeared, ridiculous costumes were falling apart..."

The old soldier paused for a long moment, staring at the table, as if seeing something far away. Her voice stayed quiet. "But when she got outside? Moonlight on her face? Saw your dad? All that melted away. She was too bubbly for anyone to guess what might've happened inside."

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

Scherezade deWinter · Aug 8, 2019

Scherezade dropped the food the moment Raz agreed, her glowing eyes laser focused on the older woman. She didn't remember much of Endelaan through her own memories; not the outside of the buildings, the cities and villages, or even what the Forbidden Temple looked like. She did remember the interior of her parents' room or what the room was that they were kept in. She remembered the smell of the library, where her mother would often take both her and Brayden. And above all – she remembered the sun, filtering through, casting its warmth on everything.

The Solstice thing sounded to her like a Night of Kodesh celebration. Yet, between what she knew about it and what Raz was telling her, there was very little overlap. Why would her mother have been on edge that night? And what weird crap had happened? Still, she rested her chin on her hands, still listening intently, gobbling up almost every word that came out of her godmother's mouth.

She could see it vividly in her mind – not, the background and what the walls looked like and all of that, but she could see her mother together with Raz, could imagine the two of them laughing together. And then the bubbliness.

"I wish I could do the bubbliness thing like her," she said with a sigh, "I have… Memories of it, from my grandmother. About how my mother used to do it, as a child, as a teen. That whole walking into a room and having people immediately love you just because you smiled thing. I could never do that. Usually if I smile like that people ask if something is wrong. I don't know how to be…. Liked. Or even loved."

Razelle Breuner · Aug 12, 2019

On a reflex, Raz shook her head. "That's weird, because all I wanna do when I see you smile is ruffle your hair and buy you candy." On cue, she smiled. For a change, it didn't look tired and strung-out. For a change, it was genuine and without greater design. Gods, she'd missed functioning like a human being. She'd spent enough time running and hiding like some kind of ground rodent on a planet with an aggressive biosphere. Being a person again, having a purpose again... that was worth more than she could see Scherezade understanding.

"I'm as guilty of this as you are, so take my hypocrisy as a willful intent to change," Razelle started, leaning across the table, onto her elbows. "But you've gotta stop comparing yourself to your mom." She shook her head, eyes focused directly on Scherezade. Not her mother's hair, or her mother's eyes, or her mother's perfect, pinchable, kissable cheeks. No Nessa here. Just Scherezade. "Take it from someone who's spent most of her life obsessing over a dead woman. It's not worth it."

As she sat back again, Raz's drink arrived. She took a long moment to enjoy the scent of a whiskey cocktail, then sipped just enough to keep her buzz going for another few minutes. Setting the gorgeous, sunset-orange drink on the table, the blonde leaned back and closed her eyes. "You, m'dear, are an energetic, creative, motivated little ball of dreams. You're not your mom. You've got a couple of things in common with her and a couple of things different, like anyone does with their parents."

Honestly, Raz doubted that telling Scherezade that would ever really change her mind. She might never stop thinking of herself in terms of what her mother had accomplished, and there wasn't much Raz could do to change that. What she could do was whatever Scherezade asked. Months ago, she would've been disgusted at her own eagerness to kowtow again. Now, it made perfect sense. A ronin craves a daimyo.

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

Scherezade deWinter · Aug 14, 2019

"Please don't buy me candy, I don't like sweets," Scherezade answered with a deadpan serious face. Another person might have said that in jest, but she hadn't; she really did loath sweets, and the fact that almost anyone she'd eaten around had chosen to not believe it and feed it to her anyway, sometimes in sneak ways, had ended up with a deep distrust of accepting food from others. It was but a small part of the reason her kitchen was so full of her meat perseveration projects. She wouldn't break her own trust regarding it.

Comparing herself to her mother? Scherezade shook her head at that. No, that hadn't been what she'd meant at all, and she wanted to say so before Raz spoke about obsessing over a dead woman for most of her life. Did she mean her mother? Was she referring to someone else? Scherezade bit down on another bantha wing and sighed.

"Well why couldn't I have had the whole smiling and everyone liking you bit in common with her?" she asked. The frustration was deep. Even Madalena had it; her sister, who up until not too long ago was mostly a combination of falsified memories. The whole part about her turning into a real ~~boy~~ girl was a stroke of luck, but none had known about it until it was almost too late.

"Or, you know. Basic people skills," she added, "that would've been mighty fine too. I don't know how to people. Isn't that sad? I can rip a new crater into a world, suck the blood out of an entire legion with the power of my thought, but I can't just chat a rando person up without them wanting to run away."

War Stories

More options

Razelle Breuner

Rogue Element

Scherezade deWinter

The Blood Hound

Razelle Breuner

Rogue Element

Scherezade deWinter

The Blood Hound

Razelle Breuner

Rogue Element

Scherezade deWinter

The Blood Hound

Razelle Breuner

Rogue Element

Scherezade deWinter

The Blood Hound

Razelle Breuner

Rogue Element

Scherezade deWinter

The Blood Hound

Razelle Breuner

Rogue Element

Scherezade deWinter

The Blood Hound

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